Wakin' Up In Vegas
by KatyaX
Summary: Hermione really should have stayed home. But Snape insisted. And one thing ALWAYS leads to another. Based on Katy Perry's song Wakin' Up in Vegas. A business trip takes a tired Hermione and my favorite version of Snape to date to The Strip!
1. Chapter 1

A/N This is based on Katy Perry's Wakin' Up in Vegas. And as I happen to live in Las Vegas right now, I figured I might as well give this a go. Moreover, I think getting Snape and Hermione out of that damp castle every once in a while is good for shaking things up. There are some references in this story which may or may not correlate with the Conventioneers story which can be found on my main page. These similarities are only mildly intentional, and I'd like to think that one day I will be slick enough to figure out how to link these two stories together. I suggest taking a listen to the song Wakin' Up In Vegas if you have never heard it before you read. Personally I have listened to the song on a loop for the entire writing of this story. I will never have another song stuck in my head for the rest of my life. Enjoy!

Wakin' Up In Vegas

It always starts out like this. Every Muggle movie I've ever seen about two people who share a night they don't remember very well, they always start out with one of the two fluttering his or her eye lids against the light, coming back to life, to reality. All those movies, though, they always seemed so silly, so madcap. With the exception of Fear and Loathing, I suppose.

All I know is, I can't, for the life of me, explain why it tastes like I licked an ash tray, or why I'm waking up in what appears to be a very nice but very out of my league hotel suite overlooking the Eiffel Tower (which seems to be extremely close to my window), or why Severus Snape has one arm over me and one of his legs entwined with one of mine.

And I have no idea why we are both covered in glitter.

_48 hours earlier_

Severus's pen dug into the small of my back and I jerked up in my chair. Somehow I managed to not squeak in surprise, only hiss at him through gritted teeth.

He was sitting behind me this time as I'd insisted that he not sit next to me again after this morning's silent argument via Legilimency. He'd thought some pretty rude things in my general direction, and I had responded in kind. It wasn't my fault that I was exhausted. I'd spent the last 20 hours on airplanes and Apparating halfway to the States as I'd missed the 4:15 port key out of town the afternoon before.

I had started dozing off before the first speaker had even finished introducing himself, and Snape had thought it a good idea to shock me with the tip of his wand. I'd looked him dead in the eye and momentarily he smirked. "If I could do that, Granger, I certainly wouldn't be sitting here with you," he thought back at me.

And now, here it was, twelve hours later and the end of the first day's sessions, and I was still nodding off. I'd had about three pots of coffee by dinner time and I wasn't looking forward to fumbling around in my hotel room as I tried to whip up a half-way decent sleeping draught.

I didn't even want to come to this stupid convention, but Snape had insisted. He said it would make me look good to Devon and the grants committee and maybe they'd finally green-light my travel expenses to Bolivia, but I didn't buy it for a second. I knew damn well he just didn't want to carry around his stacks of parchment and notebooks full of observations. And I knew that having me there would be the perfect excuse to avoid the crowds. "I'm having tea with Prof. Digglio from the Italian Exchange," he'd say. "See that you take exact notes on Dr. Gowan's presentation."

I hadn't been his official research assistant in three years, but his old habits were still hard to break. Like the poking thing. It was his silent version of a pointer slammed down on a dozing student's desk. One bic pen drilled sharply into the kidney and a stern look. Somehow he thought that explained everything.

Another half hour and five p.m. finally crept along. It had only been an eight hour day for everyone else, but I'd been up for thirty-six hours by that point. I'd clocked a full day in the Consortium's lowest level store rooms deciphering the ancient miniscule cursive of the last Record Keeper's inventory lists from 1936 when I realized I'd lost all track of time and would be late for my port key. I'd only just Apparated back to my flat and grabbed my things when 4:15 came and went with me standing in the middle of my living room staring down at a useless and rather pathetic looking copy of the Sun.

I rushed to get the last seat on a flight which would have me bounce from Heathrow to Paris to New York, another stop in Chicago with a final touch down in Las Vegas. I shrunk down my luggage (which I probably should have done earlier and taken with me to work) and Apparated to the airport. I was just struggling out of my boots in the security queue when I felt the all-too familiar wiggling of something small struggling to become something big again from in my pocket. I cast a non-verbal Muffliato charm and sent Harry a silent thank you as I then cast strengthening spell after strengthening in the direction of my sweater pocket. I'm sure if Muggles were inclined to notice magical things, I would be in a small room somewhere being interrogated by MI6.

But no. Instead I made it to America where I was being yelled at my someone much more formidable than Her Majesty's Secret Service and the Ministry of Magic's Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes put together. And my tiny luggage had been fortified so strongly I was wondering how I was ever going to manage to make it normal sized again. I tried to concentrate on that task as Snape groused at me as we gathered our belongings and exited the ballroom turned lecture hall with the other conventioneers.

"It's embarrassing," he spat, enunciating every aspect and nuance of each letter. "People know damn well you're from the Consortium. How do you think it makes the rest of us look?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize this was a diplomatic mission. This IS Las Vegas, you know. After closing session I daresay the majority of these fine upstanding men and women of the Sacred Art of Potions will be getting completely... What's the American term for it? Shit faced? I'm exhausted," I reiterated for the fiftieth time that day. "And I would really love a nice small dinner of over-priced room service and a bottle of cheap wine before I fall face first into 750 thread-count sheets. Would you care to join me?" I added for effect. "To the first two parts only."

Finally this shut him up. Either out of shock or perhaps disgust, I managed to make snarky sounds cease their exodus from Severus Snape's mouth. He eventually broke from my side without pardon and joined another group dodging into the lifts.


	2. Chapter 2

I exited my own lift a few minutes later and arrived on the main floor. Severus was nowhere in sight. Left alone except for the ridiculously large and cumbersome pile of things Severus had been so kind enough to let me carry for him, I realized dishearteningly that my room was in the tower on the other side of the casino floor. Too tired to make any spell work properly, I decided against ducking into the ladies' and Apparating upstairs. I also shot down anymore ideas about minimizing charms to make hauling Severus's papers easier. Already feeling sorry for myself, I resigned to make the best of things and struck a brave face as I plodded through the casino floor.

Foreign sounds I'd heard only in movies assaulted me from every direction. Plinking coins into metal trays, the vibrating pull of slot machine arms, the desperately bored tapping of fingers on Max Bet buttons. Every few feet I'd hear the phrase "Wheel! Of! Fortune!" shout electronically from some machine or another.

I was already able to pick out some of the more obvious Wizards and Witches from the convention trying their hand at certain card and dice games, which I'm sure would result in several letters from the Ministry about Improper Use of Magic or some such offense. I wondered vaguely if those eye-in-the-skys would pick up any evidence of unscrupulous magic or if the tapes would just skip and go staticy when reviewed later. If Id' been feeling more self-righteous at the moment, I would have probably stopped and said something to the old Warlock at the craps table, but I was beginning to feel the sideffects of too much coffee combating exhaustion. I ducked my head in a concerted effort to ignore a blatant disregard for the rules and reminded myself that the Excalibur Hotel and Casino were getting paid over $50,000 American out of this convention, not to mention the individual rooms, dining, legitimate gambling, tips and Merlin knew what else some of these people were willing to pay for while away from home. They could stand to lose a few dollars to an otherwise harmless old man.

It was a long trek through the table games and the poker areas, but I finally made it to the archway marked Tower Two. Another long lift ride and I was deposited on my floor only to remember my room was the very last one at the end of the hall. With a perseverance I didn't think I had in me, I trekked the last long mile, fumbled for my room key, and threw all of Snape's precious notes onto the luggage stand without a second look.

"If you didn't want to carry it, you could have just said so."

"What the hell are you doing in here?!" My mind was frazzled beyond belief and there was Severus sitting on the edge of my bed jotting God knew what into yet another grimy notebook. "How the hell did you get in here?"

"If you'd been paying attention, our logistics presenter made it clear that we would have to use wards if we were to protect our rooms from other Wizards. Magic too easily disrupts the electronic locks." He glanced up at the window and frowned. "It's a wonder our presence en masse has not caused the entire city to suffer a black out," he mused.

Again. What the hell are you doing in here?" I repeated as I removed my sweater and pulled off my boots. "You stormed off. You weren't due back to yell at me until at least nine or ten tomorrow."

"You asked me to join you for dinner," he said simply, still scribbling and not looking up. When I didn't respond he finally raised his head. "Cheap room service and expensive wine," he said, as though that explained it all.

"Expensive room service and cheap wine," I corrected. "And you left. You stormed off."

"I did no such thing," he sneered. "Gwenndolyn Phormatogue was getting in the lift and I wanted to schedule a private consult with her."

"Oh, well, that explains everything. Is there anyone here you don't know, Severus?" I wondered aloud as I flicked the light on in the bathroom and began running a shower.

"A few..." he trailed. I heard his notebook snap shut. "I'll be in my room. If you change your mind about dinner--"

"I haven't changed my mind. The first time," I corrected. "Order something from the binder over there by the telephone and I'll be out in a few. I'm just covered in travel and airports and taxi cabs, so I want to have a shower."

"You order it," he said bluntly. "I detest using those things." He gave the telephone a glare usually reserved for unrully students."

"Order me some kind of sandwich," I replied, pointedly ignoring his griping and closing the door between us. "And some fruit on the side. And wine!"I hollered through the door. "Something decent, but nothing we'll get in too much trouble over with Devon!"

Snape grumbled something else but I didn't care. I had a hot shower in front of me and food and alcohol on the way. The last day and a half of my life was pleasantly melting away. I could look forward to a nice, quiet, boring weekend discussing potions with my fellow over-achievers. Absolutely nothing else was going to bring me down.

A/N I get the giggles at the idea of Snape using a hotel telephone. I expect it would be somewhere between Ron's attempt to call Harry and a Regency Era Walter Matthou cursinga blue streak at the concierge.


	3. Chapter 3

I squeaked off the shower and wiped my face with my wet hands, pressed my finger tips into my eyes. It was always like this. It had been this way since I was a student, and he was my Potions Professor. He would yell at me, hiss at me, spit insults at me. But they were always intended to make me better, stronger. I didn't realize that until years later when I discovered I had become all the things he'd tried to make me. My skin was thicker, my temper more even. I was more focused, and I knew what I wanted. And it was all oddly thanks to Snape. Too bad I didn't do anything about it.

And when he found me languishing at the Ministry, hating my 9 to 5 cubicle job that never took me anywhere the brochures promised me they would, he yelled at me again. "Stop wasting your life, Granger! If you stay at the Ministry, you're as stupid and as foolish as you were back at Hogwarts!" Right there in the middle of my flat where I had invited him out of pure politeness, he peeled back all those layers he'd built up in me. And all that pent up resentment from my childhood, all the things I wanted to shout back at him when I was young, they all came out.

I must have cried for an hour, and still he never left. I can't say he was particularly comforting. It wasn't like in the movies, where the man makes the woman cry with self-realization, then holds her as she sobs and tells him all her insecurities which are inevitably based on her father leaving at a young age. I sat on the floor and soaked my favorite snuggling pillow with mascara-tainted tears and smudges of lipstick. He sat at the far end of the couch and looked at me like the pathetic thing I had become: a bureaucrat who had left every good thing she had ever done behind her. He never said it in so many words, but he felt sorry for me, and this was how he showed it. He was doing it all over again, just like when I was a child. The only thing I didn't understand was why?

After I'd come to my senses I let him take me to Germany for the weekend. Snape showed me around the Consortium, introduced me to some of his colleagues, made me jealous for the life I had been denying myself.

And then he did the most surprising thing of all. He took me to dinner. It was a decidedly un-Snapelike thing to do. But it seemed to be the icing on the cake. About halfway through the meal, he produced a cream-colored linen envelope and slid it silently across the table.

In it were maps of the area, my first month's pay, and, most striking, a key to a flat less than a mile from the main building of the Consortium.

"I never said I would accept," I protested. But it was in vain.

"You are going to accept, Miss Granger."

I took a long slow drink of my wine and looked Severus Snape straight in the eye. "You can't scare me. I'm not thirteen anymore. I can make my own decisions." It was obviously a lie; if I could make proper decisions, I wouldn't have been sitting there, at his mercy, denying a position I so desperately wanted.

"Miss Granger, I cannot make you take this position. But I will insist upon it. As you say, you are no longer a thirteen year old student of mine. But I am considering this a personal mission of mine. I see in you many qualities from which the Consortium could benefit, while allowing you to ... Reorganize your... Professional tract." Snape himself took a sip of wine and kept his eyes on the table cloth.

I foolishly took his lack of eye contact for a sign of weakness.

"Well, thank you all the same for considering me worth a 'personal mission,' as you say. But don't you have better things to do than waste your time on me when you've got such an illustrious career of your own languishing somewhere?"

I immediately knew it was a mistake.

Snape replaced his glass on the table and dabbed his lips with his napkin. "Miss Granger," he began, and I was back in the dungeons, second row back, next to Harry and Ron. I could swear I could hear Neville's cauldron boiling over. "You helped to defeat Voldemort." This was the first mention of the Dark Lord on Snape's part; not once since we had re-met had the War been brought up. "You aided Harry Potter in destroying the most powerful dark wizard in all of history. You alone perhaps saved Harry Potter himself from himself by encouraging him, caring for him, and guiding him through the mazes Albus Dumbledore left behind in order to pace his process. Moreover, I have it on good authority that you personally solved many of the riddles standing between Potter and the defeat of Voldemort. You saved me from certain death," he added after the proper length of pause. "Had it not been for your sure knowledge of potions, I would not be here, buying you dinner, trying to save you from your self-inflicted exile from the academic and erudite lifestyle which you so deserve."

I played what little hand he had dealt me.

"Erudite? My God, you really are a snob, aren't you?"

"Shut up and take the job, Granger," he replied blandly. "I need an assistant and you desperately need to get the hell out of the Ministry. Their walls are closing in on you."

I knew when I had been beat. I accepted the job by simply staying silent, which I think pleased Severus more than anything.

Four years of being his assistant and three years of being the Consortium's Assistant Record Keeper (a much more prestigious position than it sounded) and working for the Ministry was nothing more than a memory, a temp job. My new apartment was a stunning two floor model which made my old place look like a slum. The paychecks were just shy of triple of what I was making at the Ministry. I had my own office even though I started out as Severus's assistant. I was writing a book, people begged to make appointments and consults with me; I was in heaven. Eventually Snape and I fell into a kind of truce where I readily assisted him regardless of my growing duties at the Consortium and he used his considerable clout to buy me time and space to explore my own experiments. Before I could count the years gone by, people had forgotten I was his assistant and called me "Professor Granger" even though I had never professionally taught. I think Severus thought it trite, but I had never felt so appreciated.

And so here we were, Severus Snape and myself, in the middle of Las Vegas on a four day convention and two expense accounts that rivaled those of most Ministry members. And with just a bathroom door between us. If only I had known what accepting Severus Snape's invitations could lead to! I reached for a towel and wrapped my hair into a crisp turban. I reached for another towel and wrapped it around my body. Since meeting Severus Snape. everyday had been an adventure.

A/N: I purposely decided to change Hermione's voice from previous fanfics. Having her be "really British-sounding" was too overwhelming. I'm trying to break out of my self-inflicted box of Hermione sounding like Kira Knightly in Pride & Prejudice. So please forgive me for what may seem like laziness. I really have tried to make the GENERAL overtone of the story sound somewhat authentic.


	4. Chapter 4

I poked my head out of the bathroom door and peered around the corner. Still dripping, I tried to stay off the carpet. "Did you figure it out yet? The telephone, I mean."

He did not look up from where he was standing by the desk looking at the menu. "I KNOW how to USE a telephone, Miss Granger. I simply wish NOT TO." He flipped the pages in the same bored manner as when he read a particularly uninspiring thesis from a prospective Consortium applicant.

"Well, fine. I'll do it. Seeing as there are no house elves," I muttered, ducking back in the bathroom.

"I thought you heartily opposed of house elves."

"That doesn't change the fact that there aren't any," I replied. I kicked the bathroom door back to a more modest opening and started drying myself off. "If you want to make it up to me, you COULD try to enlarge my luggage! Otherwise, I'm either going to have to change back into my old clothes, which smell like a city bus, or stay wrapped in this towel, which I don't think either of us has patience for this evening, thank you."

It was silent for just a moment and I smirked. "When did you get so insolent, Miss Granger? There was a time you used to call me, SIR."

"There was a time YOU used to call me Hermione!" I countered, raking though my hair with my fingers. I ripped open the little packet of complementary gel on the vanity and rubbed a glob of it into my roots. "We can argue all you want, really, I'm getting a second wind."

"You're insufferable..." I heard him grumble. Nonetheless, there was a satisfying POP that I recognized as my suitcases exploding back to normal size.

"Would you hand my the grey dress on top of the large bag, please?"

"Certainly not," he objected crisply. "I refuse to riffle through your belongings. Moreover, I am not your servant."

I sighed and peaked out of the door again. "Would you do me the kind favor of handing me the grey dress in the large bag, as a gesture of kindness as you take pity on a very tired and very indisposed friend? PLEASE."

With the blankest of faces, he reached down, unzipped my bag, pulled out the first item he touched, and threw it at me with disdain.

I snatched the dress in mid-air and smiled my thanks. He could upbraid me all he wanted over work. He could poke me with pens, jab me with elbows, report me to Devon for all I cared. But it had been a long standing tradition since we'd started working together that in our downtime, which was never so long it was unbearable, we would call kind of truce. Neither the superior nor the subordinate present, only Severus Snape and Hermione Granger. It was impossible for him at first. He'd order me around without even thinking about it. He wasn't mean, just completley incapable of realizing that some people, despite their good nature, don't actually enjoy being made to feel as though they are constantly at someone's beck and call. Eventually, after several dozen rebukes, mostly in the verbal jab category, he started to change some of his ways. With me, at least. He was still an ass at work, and most everywhere else. But I didn't want to stab him in the eye anymore.

The dress, which I bought specifically for its ability to maintain a wrinkle-free exterior after being stuffed into a bag for three days, slid over me and hung plainly enough to look casual. I would probably fall asleep in it if there was any mercy left for me to have. I dropped the wet towels back into the tub and joined Severus in the bedroom. He was scribbling in his notebook again. "What did you want?" He half-nodded towards the open menu and I picked up the phone to order.

"You know," I said, hanging up the phone and flopping down on the bed behind him, "this isn't so bad, now that I don't smell and I'm not so bleary eyed." It felt good to snuggle into the pillow, breathe in the marvelous linen spray housekeeping used.

"Yeees," he drawled, looking over his shoulder at me. "I see you've gotten a second wind already. Don't try that 'falling asleep so you don't have to pay the bill," trick again. I'm on to you."

"You owe me from that time in Hong Kong."

"You owe me for the time in Paris," he countered. "You invited me. Your treat."

My arm draped over my eyes and I turned away from the lamp. "After how you treated me this morning? We should at least split it."

"It's your penance for being inexcusably late," he retorted, and I knew the game was over. There was that clip in his voice that echoed back to when he used to spit insults at us in class.

"Yes, Sir," I mumbled, rolling over and burying my face deeper into the soft sheets. He mad a scoffy noise at me but said no more, which was how I liked it. That was the consequence for thickening my skin all those years; now I could take him on and, frankly, not give a shit.

I must have dozed off, because when I opened my eyes next, Severus was handing the delivery boy some Muggle money and there was a huge tray and three bottles of wine on the cart at the foot of the bed.

"Merlin's socks, Granger, how much wine did you think we needed?"

I sat up sleepily and laughed dryly. "For what?"

He looked at me with a snide twist in his eyes as he removed the lids from the trays. "You're very cheeky today, you know that. It's nearly unbearable."

"And yet you suffer me," I said through a yawn as I reached for the bowl of fruit. "So, what have you been scribbling in your notebook all night? You were scribbling when I came in, scribbling while I was showering. It's got to be good."

"Points that I wish to bring up at tomorrow's Q and A in ballroom G, which you had BEST be on time for."

I ignored the last bit and turned to lay on my stomach to eat. "What points?"

He turned to stare at me. "Did you hear a WORD that was spoken in Briggs' presentation today?"

Matching his stare, I scoffed. "Not one bloody word. I was too busy trying to remember why I ever said I would come to this damn convention." So much for our truce, I thought to myself.

"If you HAD been listening, you would have lost the ever-loosening hold upon your tongue and called Briggs a filthy, self-serving wart upon the proud profession of Potions."

"Oh, Merlin," I muttered. "Right, then, why didn't I see you bolting up-right from your seat and hexing him to holy hell?"

"Because brevity is the measure of wit, as some Muggles do say. I'd much rather articulate my points in plain simple terms rather than the... Colorful style that would have spouted from me today."

"Ah. Still living down that outburst over Powell's demonstration on pH levels on various reptilian-based ingredients?"

"He implied that frogs are acidic and toads are alkaline!" Snape hissed.

"Yes... A raving lunatic, that one..." I popped the last grape in my mouth and groaned with contentment. "Look, can you just put down that damn notebook for the evening and EAT, please, and maybe have some wine, and STOP grousing? Perhaps for an HOUR? Or even a half hour?" I put my hand in the way of his pen and looked up at him sweetly. "Please?"

He looked down at me over his nose and wordlessly shut his journal, his pen trapped inside, and tossed it on to the nightstand. "You're not going to make watch another terrible movie about a well-meaning prostitute, are you?" he asked dryly.

"Drink your wine, Severus." 


	5. Chapter 5

I don't own clothing like this. Everything I own looks like Severus designed it. Black, simple, layers, buttons. I mean, I still wear colours ever now and then, here and there, of course, but there's no question that that man has had some terrible influence on my wardrobe. Even my Muggle clothing has become more somber. Vaguely I think of pets looking like their owners and groan. This groan turns into a coughing fit, but Severus doesn't even stir. For one foggy and panicky moment, I wonder if he is dead.

Every piece of me hurts, and my ribs... My ribs are being constricted in a way I can only imagine Scarlett O'Hara's were as she clung to the bedpost. My free hand traces the lines of this electric blue satin monstrosity I've been poured into, and somewhere between the thin fabric and my sweaty skin there is cool steel boning lining a corset I am sure I did not pack. It's then that I notice my left breast, for all it's worth, is lolling derelict over the top of the corset. Tucking it back in takes more coordination than I've got, so I settle on it being half wedged in, but still spilling obscenely and asymmetrically over the top. They're not exactly big, but suffice to say the corset is entirely too small. My head feels as though it's full of wool, and I can already tell there is more makeup on my face now then there has ever been in all my life. As I take inventory of my body, I can't help but notice that part of it are numb, either from Severus cowing upon them, or because they are, perhaps, missing.

I risk flexing my toes. One godawful feathery shoe falls off and clunks on the floor and Severus wakes up with a start. Though dressed, and I use this term loosely, in a Muggle tuxedo, he looks remarkably undignified, and I very nearly laugh. A bow tie is draped undone around his neck, and a sad yellow carnation, crushed and wilting, hangs feebly off his lapel. He looks as bewildered as an old tottering man at a bus stop who won't stop muttering to himself. His eyes dart, but they won't focus, for he looks about the room as though he recognizes the names for nothing occupying it. Chair? What's a chair? He looks at me with even more confusion and I'm sorely tempted to tell him to fuck off, but I don't know why. I'm overwhelmed with annoyance blossoming into anger, but for this I can find no explanation. Resisting the urge to push him away, I scuttle somewhat unsteadily away from him and try to sit up. A wave of nausea comes over me, and I bend, dizzy and reeling, over the side of the bed, expelling what I think can only be classified as pure evil, the kind Deatheaters would conjure if they tried exceptionally hard. Splatters of vomit cascade from my mouth on to the gold-flecked marble tile. It tastes of coconut. I hate coconut.

"Oh, fuck," Snape rasps. "It smells like coconut."

Again, the annoyance takes a new form, morphing from anger into decided hatred. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and my wrist comes away bright red. For a moment I think I've vomited blood, but I recognize it as lipstick, a shade I would never wear. "Perhaps - " I start, but I begin to cough again in earnest and fear blood is not far behind. Shoving away every ladylike tendency, I turn my head and spit out something that feels like metal into my palm. A filling has knocked itself loose, or maybe had already been knocked loose. The day is getting better and better.

"Perflaps, what?" he says from inside a foggy cloud of incoherency. "Perflaps... S'not a word, issit?"

"Are you from fucking ESSEX?" I hiss. But my voice sounds like someone who... Well... I don't think I did that last night... "Last night," I say aloud. "What time is it?" 'Logically' isn't the word I would apply to how my thoughts were forming, but one thing was leading to another, and it was somewhat making sense, so I went with it. "It was dark when... The last thing I remember. What's the last thing you remember?"

"There are glittery things on my pants. Is it too much to hope this is floo powder?" he slurred.

"We were watching a movie. Something about pirates..."

"Pilots..."

"PIRATES," I repeat. "We were bickering, and eating dinner. We watched some television, then a movie... We drank ... some wine. WINE!" I say, as though this solves everything. I look at Severus, but he's staring down at the bed, confusion heavy on his brow. "What?"

"Why're you wearing that?"

I follow his gaze, and there on my hand is a heavy black and silver ring. This ring, while especially familiar to me, looks foreign on my thin finger. I'm most accustomed to seeing it on Severus' hand. There's string wrapped around the shank so as to make it fit properly. My face scrunches and I can almost feel the makeup crack and peel like blistering paint. "Why am I wearing your ring?"

We're both silent for a moment, and the rush of realization crashes upon both of us. There is no instrument to measure the depths of our absolute dread.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N The response to this story has blown me away, and I couldn't be more appreciative! Thank you!

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The gravity of the possibilities before me and the stink of my sickness made me heady, and another wave of dizziness washed over me. "Look. Uh... Right."

"I don't... I don't remember anything after opening the second bottle of wine," he says, and I can tell he's sobering up as things become more evident. "This is not your room," he adds plainly.

"No. No, not even close." I risk getting up, and the marble is cold under my feet. I walk a long ways over to the middle window, for I realize we're in a suite of some kind, perhaps a villa. "This isn't even the same hotel... This is down the street, I think, if I'm remembering the Strip properly." What am I saying, I think. I can barely remember my name. I peer out to the right and I can just barely see the cartoonish red and blues of Excalibur's turrets. We're several casinos down, and another spark of panic strikes me as I realize that a great deal must have transpired since I finished that last grape, since I uncorked that second bottle. Clouds cover my memory and I shake my head as if that will clear them.

Behind me I hear Severus cough and flop back on to the piles of pillows on the bed. "It's," and he breaks into a coughing fit again. He groans and continues wearily. "It's three in the afternoon." I turn and see the clock he's referring to. Three-fourteen, to be more specific. "Sessions have been going for nearly five hours," he says.

"Leave it to you to think of work at a time like this." I look down to take stock of what I'm wearing. "First things first. I want my clothes back."

"Too right."

I start back to the bed and flip through the covers, then turn to a pile of clothes on an arm chair. But I can already tell there's nothing of ours here, for these are bright and gaudy looking things, rhinestones, silver metallic lettering, large roses and skulls. A pair of red fishnets get tangled on my - the ring, and I yank them off in annoyance. There's a closet ajar across the way and I hurry over to it thinking how absurd it is to believe that two people who have obviously blacked out would have the wherewithal to hang up their clothing. I slide the panel aside and am almost buried in shopping bags, boxes with expensive-looking labels, shoes, more clothes, something feathery - a boa? - and several long, thin plastic drink containers with "La Salsa Yard Long!" printed gaudily on the side. It smells of margaritas and I instantly start to gag.

"Oh, bollocks," I hear Severus mutter, and he gets up to try and help me, but immediately falls onto the bed as though he's been yanked back. I struggle out from under the debris and find that Severus' wrist has a blue satin ribbon, the same blue as my dress, tied around his wrist tethering him to the bedpost. My hand goes to my back and I feel empty loops gaping there. "I think that's mine," I say with a bit of an apology.

"Indeed." He starts working at the knot and looks up at me through lanks of matted hair. "Though you and I are both keen on discovery and answers, Miss Granger, I suspect there are a number of things we shall find today that we would be happier not knowing."

For no good reason I can discern, this stings a bit and reminds me that, though I know not why, I'm still mad at him. But suddenly I realize something terrible. "Oh, no. Severus, where are our wands?"

He stops picking at the knot and freezes. With wide eyes he looks at me, and at the same moment we shout, "Accio wand!"

And not a damn things happens.

We look at one another again, and I sit down on the edge of the bed. The reality is maddening and I don't know what to do next. A sound of anxiety and hopelessness pops out of my mouth and for a moment I think I might cry.

"Get a hold of yourself!" he commands, not unkindly. I look up, cross, but he says to me, "We're WIZARDS, dammit! There's got to be something we can do about this." He pulls again at the knot and he's free. "Look, get back to searching through all this... Rubbish..." he finally settles on as he stands. "See if there's something around here that will give us a clue as to what the hell is happening."

"What are you going to do?"

He pulls off his tuxedo jacket and throws it on the bed. "I'm going to try a locater spell to try to pinpoint the whereabouts of our wands. Powerful we may be, but I refuse to go a moment longer than I absolutely must without my wand."

With my head in my hands, I watch through my sticky and glittery hair as he walks around the room, looking at objects de art, picking up and tossing away Murano glass paper weights, poking at wall sconces. Finally he stops short in front of a modern art sculpture and hefts it up, bringing it back to the coffee table. The sandstone middle, about the size and shape of a bag of sugar, has a circlet and spear made of copper embedded in them, and I watch in horror as he slams the rock down on the marble floor to free the pieces inside. I have no idea what frightening number will be at the bottom of our bill for this room and the night's exploits, but I'm sure that he's just added another five-thousand American to it.

"Oh, figs, whatever do you think Devon will say about all this?"

"Devon will never know," he assures, and I can hear the clinking of pieces of the sculpture breaking apart. "Because no one is going to tell him anything. Not you. Not me." As he gets up again to hunt for more pieces for his contraption.

"Yes, but SURELY our expenditure statements will tell him SOMETHING. Moreover, we have no idea what we did last night, who might have seen us doing it. You know how the Potions community is- Everyone with their little cliques and circles. I'd be surprised if Devon hasn't already heard about this. Whatever this is."

Snape grunts with indifference. "I would prefer not to be distracted with worry over events which may not have even happened, thank you."

"You're not worried about our reputation? About what others may be saying about us at this very moment? About how we're supposed to explain what I'm only guessing by the contents of this room, is probably and astronomical bill?" My voice raises." About this!" I hold up my hand, and his heavy dark ring is stark against my pale skin. He turns to look, but then turns away.

"That is the least of our problems," he says softly as he pulls a shiny thin object from a planter. I watch him sit back down and wonder how he could possibly so calm over such a thing.

Somewhere behind me, I realize there is water running. Having nothing to say that wouldn't start a fight, I'm sure, I follow this sound into a monstrously large bathroom. It's just as extravagant as the bed room and the living room. The bath tub is more of a pool, and there is a 6 inch high-heeled platform shoe floating along like a stylized stripper yacht. It's two sizes to big for me, and I wonder with a bit of a shudder who was wearing this last night. Through the leftover hangover haze, I figure out the complicated faucet arrangement and cease the trickling water. At first I wonder why the floor of a bathtub in such a finely decorated hotel would be rainbow-colored, but then, after dipping my hand into the cold water, I realize there are about a thousand mardi gras bead necklaces sunk to the bottom. As I tangle my fingers into their strands, a cold, shiny rainbow lump drips in my hand, and there's something beautiful in the chaos. The cold water feels good on my arm and I yearn for a shower or a bath or even a wet wash cloth to wipe off my make up. "The least of our problems," I repeat softly.

The cold water has woken me more and I feel alert, or what passes for alert, considering I was in a coma a few moments ago. It's such a beautiful room, I think sadly to myself. Ten times the size of my little room back at Excalibur, full of marble and leather, artwork, candles, a fireplace, a view which, when removed from the noise and the exhaust fumes, is really quite breathtaking. It's romantic, actually. I drop the necklaces back in the tub with another spark of annoyance and snatch a hand towel from the rack, from which a stuffed hot pink monkey is hanging. I wiggle out of my panty hose and throw them in the trash. How did I ever get into those if I was so drunk I blacked out? I can hardly get into those when I'm sober. Looking in the mirror, I appraise the damage. I look like a cross between the time Neville's cauldron blew up in his face and that Muggle singer, Amy Winehouse. Back home, I sometimes use a little lipstick if I'm dressed up for some miserable fundraiser for the Consortium, maybe some concealer under the eyes if I've been up for days. But I never line my eyes, never use rouge, and certainly never styled my hair like this. There are bobby pins sticking out, matted tendrils begging to be brushed out, and, so help me Merlin, a thin but gaudy tiara wedged into the brambles.

I don't even know where to begin. Honestly, I'd have to just set myself ablaze and rebuild with the insurance money at this point.

"We're wizards, dammit" I repeat. With loads of effort and more energy than I think I've got in me, I push myself in the wandless magic department and my hair returns to some semblance of normal. The bobby pins clink into the sink and I sweep them out and throw them aside. I set the tap to scalding hot and let the steam melt the glaze of cosmetics on my face. Resisting the urge to use "tergeo" or some other scouring spell, I wipe and scrub with the hand towel until there isn't much left except some waterproof mascara and a rosy blush on my lips.

"Are you going to submit to your vanity all afternoon, Hermione, or are you going to figure out what what happened last night?" he calls from the living room.

I look in the mirror and edit what I really want to say. "I'll be there in a minute!" It's all those years as a Death Eater, I think to myself. All those years where life was so damned dangerous and eventful and challenging that waking up in a Las Vegas hotel room in Muggle clothes, covered in glitter and the stink of alcohol, with no memory of anything, and me, wearing this ring, looking like a hooker, has ZERO ability to shake him. Well. Stronger than me, I supposed. Me, the level-headed logical one of my friends, and I'm more thrown by this than anything else in recently Hermione-history.

Content with the progress on my physical appearance, I return to the living room, side-stepping things I am just now noticing: roller skates, a battered beach ball, mimosa glasses stacked into a delicate pyramid. There is a golf cart in the foyer. I stare at it for a moment, and after a beat I notice that it's too wide to fit through the door at any logical angle. The least of our problems, I repeat to myself again.

He says nothing and is engrossed in his invention, so I spend another few minutes hunting and pecking through the room It's like every cliche Las Vegas bauble has been deposited into our room, creating a sort of artistic museum feel to the place. There are trinkets and souvenirs everywhere, things like a three hundred dollar porcelain replica of the Paris hot air balloon and a pair of four foot long stuffed hammerhead sharks with a tag that says "Mandalay Bay Shark Encounter!" on it. There is makeup smudged on one of the sharks' faces, and glitter all over the other. They look abused. Here and there I pick up things that might give us a time-line or a clue as to how and why were are where we are. When I feel I've thoroughly exhausted the search, I return with my finds to the sofa nearest Severus.

Snape has constructed a strange compass-looking device, held together by bits of string he's pulled from what I think is a very expensive-looking shall. It looks like something someone would use to dust, actually. But I think the style is called "shabby-chic" or something like that. I glimpse the label. "Oh, fuck," I whisper. He grunts in half-hearted interest. "Jean Paul Gaultier..." I whisper. Even I know who that is.

"Who's that?"

"You wouldn't know him. But I daresay this one item alone, from which you pilfered your supplies, sells for about eight to nine hundred dollars."

"Oh. What's that in galleons?" he asks absentmindedly, and I know he doesn't care one bit at this point.

He waves his hand over the contraption he has assembled from ugly hotel modern art and remnants of trash and jewelry found strewn about the room. The circular piece from the sculpture begins to spin slowly and the center pointer made of what appears to be a silver cigarette holder he extracted from the planter spins in the opposite direction. It begins to spin again in the opposite direction, and then slows down considerable. Severus clears his throat and continues more matter-of-factually. "We have no evidence that any of those things are worth worrying about at this juncture. Nor would worrying about them solve anything. Nor will worrying about these things help us to focus on other priorities."

"Like?"

"Like the fact that our wands are not within a mile's radius..." he says, a bit of disappointment in his voice.

I draw closer to him, abandoning the shall. "How do you know?" I ask quietly.

"You see this part here?" he says, pointing to the cigarette holder. "The closer we are to the sought after item, the faster it will spin. It's nearly still."

"Oh. Well." I lean back and think of my vine wood wand, out there, all alone in Sin City. I hope it's having a better time than I am. Maybe it's with Severus' wand, being annoyed by it's detached ambivalence.

"What have you found, then?"

"Hmm? Oh. Um, tickets to a show called Thunder Down Under. I have no idea what that is. About fifty receipts for clothing." I hold up a yellow carbon copy invoice. "A rental agreement for ... THREE DAYS for an Aston Martin from Las Vegas Exotic Car Rentals, listing YOU as the driver. I sorely regret missing that."

"At least I have good taste."

"At fifteen hundred dollars a day, you must have very sensitive taste buds," I reply dryly, continuing my inventory. "Achem. And this." I hand him a short stack of Polaroids. "I'm planning on burning them when this is all over."

He flips through them, and is horrified. "HOW does one even achieve this without lasting physical damage!" he asks, showing me a photo that, under normal circumstances, would produce unending giggles from me.

"I have NO idea."

"And this one! Where does one even FIND a giraffe in a metropolitan area, let alone RIDE one!"

My head lolls back and I close my eyes. I have no interest in finding out. I'm already drafting my letter of resignation. Maybe Victor has some connections in Bulgaria. He sighs and there is the sound of plasticy Polaroids being slapped on to the coffee table. "Where are you going?" I say, my eyes still closed. I pull the ruined shall over my face and sigh.

"I'm going to clean up. I'm going to find something ELSE to wear. And I'm going to leave this room and all that's in it, and find out what happened to us last night."

"And how do you propose to do that, my dear?" I holler after him.

"By grabbing every maître d', bartender, inn keeper, cab driver, and cocktail waitress by the lapels and demanding to tell us what they know!"

The thought amuses me for a brief moment. Then I realize something. "Cocktail waitresses don't have lapels!" I shout down the hall.

But he's already slammed the door behind him.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N – Short chapter today because I suspect the next will be rather long. Thank you all again for the R&Rs!

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There's muffled cursing from the bathroom and I assume that Severus is not as taken with the beauty of the colorful bath tub as I was. It's only been an hour, if that, but I'm sick of worrying already. I'm sick of thinking about the sound of Devon chewing us out, sick of thinking about how we're going to get out of here before housekeeping shows up. Sick of looking at this ring on my finger and not knowing what it means. So while Snape takes his shower and grumbles to himself, I occupy myself with a hunt for some kind of clothing that won't make me look like a Spice Girl.

There's a chest of drawers full of sweaters back at my flat, and about twenty long black skirts hanging in the closet. And robes, real wizarding robes, with pockets for my wand, hanging right beside them. In my cupboards there are eighteen varieties of tea. Some of them gifts from Severus. And my record player. And my books. Good grief, so many books! All these things I've take for granted. As I rummage through the shirts on the chairs closest to the bed, I wonder if I'll ever see any of my normal clothing again, or if Devon will just auction the whole lot to cover the debt.

Eventually I find a green long sleeve shirt and an ankle length black skirt for myself. Severus will have to do with some black jeans and one of the TEN black t-shirts I've discovered in an Armani bag. "Well, we did a good deal of shopping, didn't we?" I sigh aloud. But then the wheels start turning and I look at the names on the bags and find that pile of receipts. There are times on them, addresses, even the names of some of the people who rang us up.

The water in the shower stops running and a few moments later, Severus comes out with a towel wrapped about his waist.

"Anything?" he asks, toweling his hair.

"Yes, I've been thinking." I grab the guide book next to the phone and join him in the bedroom. "We must have blacked out early."

"Oh? What makes you say that?"

I offer him a pile of clothes and he looks at them with a bit of disappointment. "I looked for our real clothing. Sorry, it's the best I could do."

He takes them but looks at me with a weary face. "When we're done with all this, I'm performing Obliterate on myself."

"Get in line." I follow him to the door of the bathroom where he's gone to change and I lean against the frame tiredly. "I was looking at the receipts, and there're a good deal of clues."

"How's that?"

"Well, even though there are a lot of things that are open here twenty-four hours, not EVERYTHING is. Like those stuffed shark toys? The guest guide book here says this shark thing closes at nine. So, either we were there before nine, or we got these in a gift shop at Mandalay Bay. And those aren't open all night either, I would suppose, because the shops at Excalibur aren't open all night."

"So we would have had to have been at this Mandalay place before, let's say, nine in the evening, OR before their shops closed? Interesting." He reappears in the doorway and holds his hand out for the guide book. "Mandalay is very near the Excalibur. Perhaps that's where we started our... Exploits."

"And then worked our way down the Strip?"

"Applying this logic, we should be able to trace our way through the night. And morning. And... Most of the afternoon," he adds reluctantly, taking a look around the room.

"Are we sure we want to know?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps not..." He looks up confused. "Why are you still wearing that ugly dress?"

Annoyance brims again. "You told me I was a slave to my vanity."

"Not a slave. Submissive," he says, the S's hissing suggestively.

"Not in a million years, Severus." And I push past him to the loo. "We should go back to our original hotel. It is where we started, after all. Also, our real clothes are there."

He takes my place on the wall by the door. "I don't think so. What you said earlier about who may have seen us. Perhaps we should avoid the hotel."

"Why the sudden change of heart? I didn't think you were all that worried about things like that."

"It's one thing to worry about things we can't know. It's another to worry about having to explain those things."

"Ah. Quite right." I join Severus in the hall and pull my hair back.

"You're, ah..." he trails off and clears his throat. "You're still wearing my ring."

I let my hair fall as I look at my hand. "Oh. Yes. I'm sorry, I was trying so hard not to think about it that I suppose I forgot it was there." I start to pull it off, but he protests.

"No. No, why don't you, ah... Hold on to it, then?"

"Sorry?"

He looks away and busies himself with a map on the back of the guide book. "Well, you, er, didn't lose it despite whatever went on last night. So it stands to reason it's safe on your hand. No sense in risking losing it now."

I watch him head for the door and then I look back down at the ring. "All right."

"Come, Miss Granger," he calls as he navigates around the golf cart. "We've a mystery to solve."

"Mystery. Indeed." And once more I follow him.


	8. Chapter 8

I'm about to comment to him about how much this hotel looks like some parts of the Consortium, but I'm too tired to even bother. As we come downstairs, there's plenty of marble and gilt, mirrors and plush furniture. But unlike the comforting quiet, the hushed conferring between bearded and robed colleagues, there is chatter, shouting, laughter, babies crying, and, from farther down the halls, clincky and beepy slot machines.

I simply cannot wait to go home. Part of me doesn't even CARE what happened last night. The only reason I'm even going along with this "mystery," as Severus has called it, is to get my wand back and, possibly, a little of my dignity. But I fear the pursuit of the former will be at the expense of the later.

"There wasn't ONE long sleeved shirt in the lot?" he grumbles. His pale arms are in stark contrast to the black he's wearing, and I realize that I've rarely seen him in anything other than his traditional black robes. I think he's got a set of black and green ones shoved in the back of his closet, and one nice dress robe he begrudgingly shrugs on when Devon insists on Snape meeting "company." Company being code for "financial backers." He rubs his arms, but I know it's not the air conditioning. It's far colder in his study, where the fire is lit for potions only. He's self-conscious, and I can't help but feel bad for him.

"I'm sorry. As I said, it was the best I could do. We, ah... Didn't exactly conform to standards last night. Not even in the clothing department. Actually, LEAST of all, so far as I know." I look down at what I had salvaged from the less then stellar options. After rummaging though several bags, I had found a pair of black leggings, a grey pencil skirt, and a slick-feeling top from something called "Dolce and Gabbana." The name is vaguely familiar to me, but it's probably just a leftover memory from the night before. After glancing at the price tags, I was sure I legitimately owned nothing from this company.

"We could always try transfiguring them," I suggest. "Though I don't suppose I'm all that up for it. I'm starting to get a headache."

"I'm not going to risk transfiguring my clothing without a wand," he scoffs. "Especially while suffering a hangover. We're already stuck in this damnable predicament. The last thing I need right now is to be walking about and have my trousers turn to a sheep."

"A sheep?"

"Wool."

"Denim," I correct. But he's not listening. He's stopped, put his hand up, and I peer around him.

"Does that man in the purple look familiar?"

There is a badly disguised wizard wearing a purple satin (possibly ladies') blouse and khaki cargo pants talking to a confused looking hotel staffer. He's gesturing broadly about something I can't hear, but I recognize him despite his ridiculous attire. "Oh, no... That's Walton Fenhing, isn't it?"

"It would seem so." Walter Fenhing is, to me, instantly recognizable. He once trapped me for over an hour, and HOUR, at a luncheon exclusively for those applying for Potion Mistress status. He seemed to think it was his own personal salad bar of eligible women, and he spent the entire time implying to several of the guests and me that his cabin in Switzerland was the ideal place for woman of our tastes to "expand our repertoire." Severus, having shown up late as usual, had stepped in upon arrival and rescued me, but not before I told Fenhing what I thought of him.

"We'll have to get past him. He's sure to recognize us." Severus nods and pulls me behind an over-sized white with gold trim grandfather clock.

"You go first then. I'll put a basic disillusionment charm over you. A simple one. It will be enough to get you past him."

"And you?"

"I'll meet you outside." I'm about to protest us splitting up in such unfamiliar settings, but he insists. "He's less likely to notice just one of us. He's occupied now, but may not be later. So you should go now."

I peer around the clock and see he's positively trapped the blond staffer. She is politely nodding along with him, but her smile doesn't reach her eyes. "Ok. Ok, right outside," I confirm. I feel a warm tingle start at the crown of my head and trickle down to my shoulders. He nudges me out into the flow of foot traffic and I successfully pass him. I glimpse myself in a mirrored wall and snort with protracted laughter as I see the fruits of Severus' work. I look like a younger version of Madame Pince, grey streaking my hair. I realize he did that because Fenhing likes them young. Anything over twenty-five is persona non grata to him. I don't even care. I'm amused, actually.

The foot traffic disperses into several different directions as it enters the lobby. I can feel the charm wearing off. Snape must be more hungover than I thought, because I'm barely halfway past the check-in desk when it begins to feel like I'm emerging from underneath a blanket. A cooling feeling comes over me and I can breathe again.

"Mrs. Malfoy! Mrs. Malfoy!"

I stop and turn only because the name is familiar to me, certainly not because I think for a moment someone is addressing me.

But there he is, an excited looking bell hop, and he's coming towards. His name tag says David, and the irony that I know his name and he does not know mine is not lost on me. "Mrs. Malfoy, I'm sorry to bother you. I see you're headed out. But you asked that we hold several items in the hotel safe. And to make sure you didn't leave without them." I have nothing to say, no idea if I should agree or not. Seeing my confusion, David adds, "Unless you're not leaving yet, of course. We'd be pleased to hold on to the items until you've decided to check out."

"Um..." I have no idea where to start with this boy. He continues on, his smile never failing. I suddenly realize there must have been thousands of galleons in tips alone bleeding out of us last night.

"Oh. Well. I'm, er, not checking out just yet. But, you know, I might be in a hurry later, so perhaps I'll be taking them now." I don't know what possesses me to say so. It's only because I know for a fact that I don't bear a resemblance in the slightest to a single Malfoy woman, of blood or by name, that I'm confident he's not mistaking me for an actual guest.

"Yes, ma'am. I'll be right back." He nods and disappears to a room behind the check-in desk. I'm feeling very vulnerable out in the open. And even more-so that someone has identified me as "Mrs. Malfoy." I can't even begin to list what's wrong with that statement. Malfoy women don't exactly travel in the same circles I do. And there isn't a one of them I'd care to impersonate, even in jest.

Two things strike me as somewhat optimistic. Firstly, this David fellow doesn't seem to want to detain me for the authorities. Secondly, apparently, he remembers me, pleasantly it seems, so perhaps we weren't too terrible when we arrived last night. Conversely, two things strike me as unsettling. For whatever reason I cannot begin to fathom, I've registered myself under "Mrs. Malfoy." Whether that's Narcissa, Lucius' wife, or that Astoria girl Draco married a few years ago, I don't know. Also, I've registered myself as "Missus," which is probably the most upsetting bit of all. I glance down at the ring on my finger, this stupid ring that Severus has insisted I hold on to. How this came to reside on my finger, so deliberately as to have been fitted with a bit of string, remains a pinnacle mystery for me, even in light of all else that may have happened. While Severus leads the hunt for our wands and for answers to the night's supposed debauch, and while I wholeheartedly wish to contribute, I can't help but be completely distracted by this fucking ring.

I catch Severus out of the corner of my eye. He's striding for the front doors but slows down a pace to look at me quizzically. I shrug helplessly and quickly turn back to David who is reappearing from the back room. He's carrying a large white, metal studded leather bag. I'm sure whoever talked me into this last night won salesman of the year. He hefts it up onto the counter and grins. "Everything's in order. Would you care to look through it to make sure everything is there?"

"Ah, nooo," I drawl. I'm sure whatever surprised and/or horrified face I make when I peek inside will alert David that there's something off. He's still standing there expectantly, so I smiled weakly. "David, er, I'm sure I was a little... How does one put this... Tipsy last night." To this, David fails to hold in a snort. He looks sincerely apologetic, but I wave him off. That answered that question. "Well, then, I'm sure you'll understand when I ask... Was, er, MISTER Malfoy with me at the time?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am! He, uh, he wasn't very talkative, but the two of you checked in together."

"And what time was that, please?"

"That was just before three a.m. I was just finishing my shift. You were my last guests, Mrs. Malfoy."

"Of course. Yes, thank you. Thank you so much. Have a lovely day." Surely I am as counterfeit as a copper galleon, as I can't begin to imagine a real Malfoy woman being that polite to "the help." "David?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"My husband and I were in a bit of a hurry when we left, and I forgot to put the 'do not disturb' sign out. Would you please see to it that no one cleans the room?"

"Of course! I'll see to it right now." He's already picking up the phone to make it so. I can't even begin to imagine what we spread around last night to make my request reach such levels of attention.

I smile sweetly again and turn to leave. I heft the bag off of the counter and have to catch it and sling it over my shoulder as though it didn't weigh ten pounds, which it most certainly did.


	9. Chapter 9

There's something that no one else knows, no one, besides me and Severus. I'm sure people suspect it, and I'm sure there are rumors- Probably dating back to Hogwarts, if I'm honest with myself. I know even my best friends have insinuated things along certain lines. Harry with a bit of a smirk, Ron with a scowl. But surely, if even they thought for one moment that it was true, knew what had really happened, well... Let's just say none of this is really all that surprising. This dark heavy ring on my finger pulls at my hand, leads me back to him. He stands off to the side in the shade, avoiding the glaring sun of the Nevada desert. From inside the lovely hotel with all its distractions, he looks almost passable for a normal, average, dare I say Muggle, man. Without his robes, without his wand, or his grubby little notebook, he looks like any other bored tourist. That is to say, to me, he looks boring. Nothing of the man who stood in front of me and changed my life all those years ago. Nothing of the man who shook me back into reality by making me realize my dreams. Nothing of the man who once, one night, took my hand so unexpectedly that I yanked it back in surprise, and who looked hurt when I did. And now, here we were, years later, past all that, whatever that was, married. I wondered if it surprised him as little as it surprised me.

I pushed through the heavy glass doors. The wall of heat hits me and I nearly stagger with shock. Snape loops his arm in mine as I regain my bearing and I lean into him. "We need to walk," I say quietly. "Away from here."

My tone causes alarm and I feel him stiffen as we hurry away from the doors. "It's worse than we thought, then?"

"Not exactly. Worse, possibly, but in a completely different direction." I hurry with him, arm in arm, down the long walkway which encircles the fountains and lake and leads to the Strip. "But possibly better too," I add, and I offer him a small smile. "Let's just get somewhere a bit more private."

There is a little alcove with a cement bench tucked back into the foliage. I pull him down to it and glance around before tucking the ugly white bag between us. We both peer down into it and are struck dumb. Inside, even through the shadows of the bag, white sparkles, glinting gold, and a number of other lovely colors beam back at us. In disbelief Severus puts a hand over it all and looks away, but not before I glimpse a fist-sized roll of cash in the side pocket. Getting locked out doesn't seem to terrible anymore.

"This was under your name?" he asks.

"No. Not exactly."

"Then whose?"

"Well. It would appear that, somehow, for whatever strange reason, I am known to at least one member of the staff as, achem, er... MRS. Malfoy." For one dread moment I worry I might have actually BECOME someone's ACTUAL Mrs. Malfoy last night. It's really the only thing that could make the day worse, and that's still taking into account that someone has handed me a bag of jewelry worth more than perhaps my life.

Severus looks aghast and a little disgusted. "Mrs. WHAT?" he sputters.

"Don't get use that tone with me, MR. Malfoy."

He is speechless, and I vaguely wonder which one of us grade A geniuses picked the names. We get up again and walk briskly but quietly down the path to the main thoroughfare. Along the way, several things start to catch up with me. Images from the moment I woke up til moments ago flutter past my mind's eye, words exchanged, looks shared... My mind wanders and I have to shake the wrackspurts away. I take control of my runaway train of thought and resume the efforts of the matter at hand.

"Severus, I'm starting to think we didn't actually buy everything we're in possession of."

"How do you figure that, then?"

"Well, the charge cards the Consortium supplies us, they have limits, as Muggle cards do. It's possible, MAYBE, that the room, the clothes, the baubles, even the largest and most expensive, COULD have been bought with our combined accounts. Maybe. If no one back home noticed. But this?" I say, shaking the bag a little so the clinking of diamond encrusted bracelets and cocktail rings punctuates my point. "This is far too extravagant for even our generous travel expenses. I think, and I don't KNOW this, but I think we gambled last night, and I think we did very, very well."

"I've had a very full life, Miss Granger. I hardly think playing roulette is something I would be drawn to."

"Sober," I amend. "Besides, it doesn't have to have been roulette. And it didn't have to be you, either..." My eye is drawn to the passing purple double decker bus labeled "RIDE THE DEUCE!" Along it's side, there is an advertisement for $5 blackjack at the Tropicana. "Severus... The Tropicana. That's right across the street from our hotel."

"And what does that have to do with ANYthing?"

I look up at him with a look that clearly says "prat." I take his hand and run for the bus.

I peel green bills from the wad of American Muggle money rolled up in the side pocket of the hideous purse. Fourteen muggle dollars later and we were seated at the far back of the second level of the bus. It was obvious this was a bus for tourists. There were more cameras in use at the moment than are usually seen on Oxford Street back home. Thankfully, it didn't look like most of those sharing the top level with us understood much English. The women, dressed mostly in clothing that looked straight out of 1986, were all wearing visors and clucking and cooing to one another about various sights along the Strip.

Severus mutters something about the desert heat, the inferior travel methods of muggles, and something else I can't make out. I nudge him in the arm to budge up and make room as a rather large and uncouth looking man had decided to take up right next to me. In an unlikely display of chivalry, Snape stands up and makes to switch places with me. So now I sit against the window and between us I plunk the handbag full of unfamiliar baubles.

"Are you going to explain your derailing train of thought to me, or shall I simply close my eyes and have you wake me when we get where we are going."

"Oh, shut up," I sigh. "I have something to tell you."

He raises a perfectly arched brow and I feel like a child again, having to admit I've done something radically against school rules. "Look, ah... There are some things you don't know about me."

"Oh, Merlin," he mutters. "Well, Mrs. Malfoy, you had better inform me."

I take a breath to steady myself. "When you found me, those years ago, working at the Ministry? I... well, I wasn't making enough money at the time to, well, keep my life together." I chance a glance up at him, but look back out the window. "I, er... I went through a bit of a reckless streak. And I started to gamble."

In the reflection of the glass, I see he opens his mouth to speak but shakes his head and nods me on.

"Are you familiar with the French Wizards' card game of Poque? Well, there's a Muggle game that's very similar, called poker. And I got very good at that. I played online." I stopped suddenly and turn back to him. "Oh. Uh. On the computer. You know, that gray box I keep on my desk at home? Well, it lets me compete against other people all over the world. And... Let's just say I'm very good. Really quite good, actually."

"And this is somehow going to explain why we are in the state we have found ourselves in?"

"It's just that... It was dumb luck, really, learning to play poker so well. It was a lot of gut instinct, you see. Well, it... Got boring after a time. I started reading about other games, and I found a very interesting game called blackjack."

"Black. Jack," he repeats slowly. "Dare I ask?"

"It's a card game, where you bet on whether the sum of your cards will beat the sum of the dealer's cards. To add to the challenge, you mustn't go over twenty-one."

Snape looked like he was trying to hold himself together long enough to actually continue to care where this was all going.

"ANYWAY," I soldier on, "THAT game requires a bit less luck and touch more... Finesse."

"Cheating," he says bluntly. I'm sure I look stung at the word because he smirks and sits back, seemingly content on guessing the end of the story. "Well, then. It would seem we've most likely answered from where a fair share of our winnings originated. Would you like to enlighten me on why were seem to be returning to the scene of our crime?"

"I told you before, those receipts?" I reach into my pocket and pull out a rolled up wad of them I took with me before we left the room. "They've names of stores and some have names of shopkeepers. I suspect we were a memorable sight last night, and perhaps some of the gaming staff will remember us as well."

"I'm beginning to wonder if that's something we really want," he grumbles.

"Wands, home, Devon, rewrite CVs. In that order, we agreed."

He grunts in response and I lean my head against the window. "Let's take the time to put some pieces together, all right? Maybe now that we're showered and out of the room, things will start to come back to us." Severus looks annoyed, but he's holding it in well. "We'll get a bit to eat as soon as we can," I promise. "Let's just get to the Tropicana first. In the meantime, let's try to relax. Maybe some of our memories will resurface now that we've slowed down."

But not even a minute later I become agitated; all I can hear is the clucking of the tourists in front of us. Well, I might be tired and hungover and half-starved, but there's one bit of wandless magic I feel confident in using. "Muffliato," I whisper, waving my hand at the women as nonchalantly as possible. Severus looks at me with a surprised and disapproving glare. "Miss Granger!" he hisses.

"Oh, really, now," I sigh. "I can't think with all that oohing and aahing over - " I glance out the opposite window and am appalled. "FAKE French statuary! People won't bother themselves to walk into a museum to see the real thing, but they'll come HERE of all places to see a replica outside a casino." I duck down to read the writing under the likeness on the side of the building and then stare in disbelief out the back window of the bus. "Vauquelin!" I hiss. "The French alchemist who discovered beryl! Are you going to tell me there's ANYONE ELSE on this bus who can appreciate that?"

"Now, now," he replies, and I can hear the sarcasm about to drip. "Not everyone grew up in a castle, did they?"

I narrow my eyes at him and go back to my own sight-seeing, hoping that some shop, some arch of a doorway, even some bush or tree, will grant me the tiniest of glimpses into the events of last night.

We get a little further and something catches my eye to the left. "Look familiar?" I ask, nudging Snape's arm.

"Hmm?" He follows my gave and then groans. The "Las Vegas Exotic Car Rentals" dealership is open and doing a booming business by the looks of it.

"We should have asked at valet," I say. "Though I'd hate to think either of us decided we were up for driving last night..."

"I can't DRIVE," he reminds me unnecessarily.

"And you don't gamble, wear Muggle clothes, and your name's not Malfoy EITHER. But here we are!" I say with a dramatic flourish. We exchange looks that clearly prove we are very close to murdering one another before we reach our destination.

Thankfully the traffic picks up and we move down the Strip faster than we have since we left the Bellagio. In the distance I see the familiar red and blue turrets of the Excalibur. Across the street to it is the Tropicana.

"Anything?" I ask, and I try to put a touch of concern and sympathy in my voice so he doesn't round on me.

"No," he says sulkily.

"Well, there's our stop. Another minute or so. Let's duck inside, and then we can grab a bite to eat, then start looking for clues."

He says nothing and I'm sure that his disposition will hardly improve once food has entered his life again. Severus Snape is trapped in the sunniest, hottest, loudest, most densely packed Muggle towns in the world. He's without his wand, he's wearing jeans, and he keeps looking over at the ring on my finger. If either one of us thinks our moods will lighten with the introduction of a turkey sandwich, we're both fooling ourselves.


	10. Chapter 10

We manage to find a cafe and get a table without incident. As we hide behind our menus I realize we're both feeling more exposed now than since we left the room. We're closer to our original hotel and the likelihood of running into someone we know. Sessions are, thankfully, still going on. We still have some time to hunt down some answers before we have to worry too much about discovery. We sit in silence after we order, both thinking hard about the events of the night. Suddenly, Severus sits up straight and I think he's on to something.

"What?"

"I'm an idiot, that's what." And he pierces my gaze with his black eyes. I feel like I'm reeling, and considering my touchy stomach lately, this is not my favorite part of the day.

I'm back in the hotel room, my real room, and I'm in my real clothes. I'm on my stomach, propped up on a pillow, holding a large glass of wine. Severus is, to his credit, relaxed behind me, leaning against the remaining pillows, with a matching glass. Suddenly the image jumps and slows, and there's a knock on the door. A woman I've never seen but with a hotel name badge I can't read in my memory is handing me another bottle of wine. It's got a ribbon on it. I remember being confused and Severus, his voice far away behind me, asks, "Who sent that?"

Suddenly I'm at the desk, opening this new bottle. There's no card, but it looks familiar. I don't remember the label. Cream-colored with a little bit of red writing, but I have no idea what it says. I must never have read it. "I don't remember ordering another bottle," I say.

"You've had nearly a bottle yourself," he says lazily. "I'm surprised you remembered where the door was..."

"Piss off," I laugh as I stand over him, refilling his glass. "If I ordered it, I'm drinking it. And if it's a gift, I'm not turning it down, thank you."

The scene ends abruptly, and we're in the hallway laughing. Cut again to the lobby where we run into three or four other jovial witches and wizards. Cut again to the escalator where five out of the six of us are trying, with not much effort, to conceal the fact that moving stairs are, apparently, blowing our minds. As the resident Muggle-born, I roll my eyes, and I turn to tell a staring family going past us on the down side, "They're from the country." Cut again to some kind of tram that's not going very fast, but we're all acting as though it's a Firebolt set to light speed.

But then it turns black. Suddenly I'm sitting in the cafe again.

"FUCK!" I hiss, just as the waitress approaches with our plates. "Excuse me," I mutter up at her. When she leaves I glare up at Snape. "You don't just slap me in the face with Ligilimancy without warning!" I hiss again.

"We were sent another bottle of wine..." he muses, completely uninterested in my chastising.

"Noooo," I correct. "I was sent another bottle of wine. It was my room, not yours. No one would assume you would be there as well."

"Perhaps. But everyone knows we work together and that you and I ..." We both look at our untouched plates for a moment. "That you and I often compare notes after sessions," he finishes lamely.

I don't know what he's so shy about all of a sudden. The most scandalous thing we've ever done, before last night of course, was watch some R-rated movies. "Well, look," I sigh, "we know this much at least. We left the room, met up with two other couples of witches and wizards, and then took that tram to Mandalay Bay next to the Excalibur."

"Which is where we got those stuffed sharks then," he remembers, pulling the guide book from his back pocket. I rummage in the purse and come up with a pen that looks as though it was chewed by a dog. "Ugh... Here." He looks at it with disgust but takes it anyway and marks something down on the map. "You're not going to read my mind again, are you? Because I think I should eat first."

"No," he drawls, still concentrating on the map. "Your memories cut off abruptly. You don't remember anything right now. Perhaps later, but not now."

"Do you remember the same thing?"

"Some. Now that I see it again. I don't remember the tram."

I bite into my sandwich and I finally feel like I'm waking up. I've ordered myself a soda too, something I haven't had in ages. The sugar seeps into my blood and I'm alert and happy again. Severus is picking at his roast beef and potatoes absentmindedly as he stares at the map as though it will reveal the night's secrets to him out of intimidation. "Eat, Severus. Because we've got to get going soon." Finally fed, I'm eager to leave and unravel the night.

He looks extremely pensive and he eats without thinking. Suddenly his eyes flash to the ring on my hand, and I fight the urge to pull my hand back, as though his gaze burned me. But still he says nothing. Finally we are ready to leave. I drop several bills on the table and take a last sip of my soda.

"Black jack tables?" I suggest, and he nods. We head to the gaming floor and I scan the dealers' faces.

It's just after dinnertime so the tables are filling up. I don't really know where to begin. Other than walking by every table and hoping someone remembers us, I don't know what else to do. And even if someone does, by some miracle, recognize either of us, it's not like I can just say, "Hi, this might sound odd, but did you happen to see us set some magical sticks down anywhere while we were winning a shit-load of money?"

I make eye contact with a few dealers as we walk down the lanes between tables, but no one seems to take much note of us. "Maybe we're early," Snape suggests, reading my frustration. "We've worked out that we were probably here later than... What time is it now?"

"Oh. Oh, I don't know. There aren't clocks in casinos."

"That's rather inconvenient."

I decide against explaining the reasoning behind this decorating feature and continue to scan the floor. With a sigh I come down off my tiptoes and fold my arms. "I hunted horcruxes with Harry Potter," I grumble. "I think I can figure out how to track down my own WAND!" I snap, much louder than I had intended. Several people look up from their machines, but the lights and bells and beeps drawn them back in.

"I'm pleased to see the strain isn't getting to you," he says dryly.

"Cissy! CISSY!"

Snape freezes next to me and I follow his gaze. There is a very loud woman in pink spandex and a top with no load-bearing capacity shuffling towards us in white stilettos. She's carrying a tiny dog weighed down about the neck with plastic pearl necklaces. With every step, the dog's head wobbles up and down and so do the woman's ample breasts.

"Cissy! Lou! Hiiiii, kids! Oh, I'm so happy to SEE you two again!"

There are people turning to look at this very friendly but very loud woman practically yelling at us in the middle of the gaming floor. Before I realize what I'm doing, I say, "It's great to see you, too! How are you?" I feel Snape stare at me in disbelief, but I nudge him and he makes a valiant effort to smile. It looks foreign on him, but the woman in front of us doesn't seem phased.

"I was telling Carl not five minutes ago I hoped to run into you! Isn't that something? And here you are! You kids wanna hit the Pai Gow room again?"

"Ah... Well..."

"Deena! Hey, sweetie!" From behind the dishwater blond in front of us appears a chubby and badly tanned man in a blue Hawaiian shirt and Panama hat. He looks extremely friendly and as equally loud as the woman he's addressing as Deena. "Well! Look here, Cissy an' Lou! Weelllll, we didn't expect to see you two up and about after last night!" he jokes.

"Oh, Carl, stooooop," Deena chides. "These kids're just fiiiine," she assures. I don't know what's funnier: the fact that these two tourists seem very familiar with us, or the fact that they've addressed us as kids when Severus is older than both of them. Deena turns to me again. "Sweetie, you two were just having fun, is all. Don't listen to Carl," she giggles.

"Uh, Deena? Yes, uh, we, we can't really stay," I start. "But, maybe you can help us out a bit?"

"Oh, SURE, honey! What can we do for you?"

I glance up at Severus and back at Deena and Carl and smile. "Well, as you say, we were... Uh, having a bit of fun last night."

Carl starts laughing in earnest. "I was sure you kids were gonna get kicked out, but the way you kept winning, well, once they moved you up and over to the high rollers' room, we knew you were here to stay!"

"Well, that helps then! We, er, had some trouble earlier, heh, trying to figure out a few... minor details about last night," I smile sweetly. Deena and Carl snicker to each other, and Snape glances down at me with annoyance. "We were just wondering about what time you ran into us? And... Where?"

Carl smiles broadly. "Well, for heaven's sake, you don't even remember THAT?" He laughs loudly again and points over to a large bank of slots against the wall. "We were right there playin' the Wheel of Fortune spinners an' you two came by, haha, a little tipsy, but that's okay. Sat down next to us, were arguin' kinda silly over something, both of you laughing over it. That was right after we left the buffet, maybe around eight-thirty or so."

We look up at each other. This is the first real definitive information we've had all evening. "And, er... Do you remember what happened next?"

Deena laughs again then links her arm in mine. "Oh, honey, let's take a walk, love, and we'll fill ya in," she says motherly. 


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Behind me, Carl puts his arm around Severus' shoulders- not an easy feat considering he's about two feet shorter than Snape. As Deena leads me over to the bar in the middle of about a hundred slot machines, I can hear Carl going on about his lousy luck at the sports book. Snape is somehow "mmhmm"ing along with Carl at the appropriate times, but I suspect it's all those years of having to suffer through interminable meals at the staff table that's keeping him what passes for amiable. We pull up four stools at the nearly-deserted bar and Deena orders everyone a Long Island Iced Tea before we can protest. As the bartender fills the order, Deena smiles and regales us with enough information to piece together an hour an a half of our night.

"Now," says Deena, settling her ample bottom on the stool a little more securely. She starts to fuss with the dog in her lap and suddenly I remember something.

"Senor Plinko!" I interrupt. The little bug-eyed chihuahua whips his head up to look at me and I feel strangely accomplished.

"So you do remember something!" says Carl brightly. "Well, that's good! Didn't kill too many brain cells."

"Seeeee? You're not so bad off," Deena coos.

Senor Plinko looks up at me expectantly so I reach out to stroke his head, but he growls and nips at me. I tuck my hand safely back in my lap and console myself with the drink that has appeared in front of me.

Severus leans over and begins in a voice I recognize as his "I've had quite enough of this thank you, now tell me what I want to know before I turn you or a nearby loved one into slime mold" voice. "Mrs..." he starts, but Deena laughs loudly again.

"Oh, Lou, we're over those little formalities, sweetie."

He perseveres with an endurance I didn't think possible. "Er... Deena. We appreciate your much welcomed hospitality. Regardless, we endeavor to rediscover the events of last night."

Carl cracks up and playfully jabs his wife in the arm. "If I had fifty cents for every two dollar word that boy uses!"

I reach beside me and squeeze Severus' knee in a plea to be patient. "So, Deena, what the hell happened last night?" I say with a very forced smile. As infuriating as they may be, Carl and Deena are our only leads.

"Ha! There's the potty mouth we came to love," Carl laughs. He downs half of his drink in one go and emerges pink cheeked.

Deena giggles and hoists Senor Plinko up to give him a kiss, leaving a bright pink lip print on his boney head. "Well, we were over there by the Wheel of Fortune spinners like Carl said. And you kids walked over laughing about something and sorta of kidding around and arguing over something or other."

"Do you hear what we were saying by any chance?"

"Oh, gosh, something about how you were right, no, he was right, so on and so on."

"Sounds accurate," Severus mutters.

I smile up at Deena to encourage her to continue. "And then you sat down near us, and we said hello and you introduced yourself as the Malfoys - -" At this, Severus' knee tensed under my fingers. "We got to talking about where you were from, what with your accents and all. And you said you were here for a convention." I don't remember the conversation, but it all seems right so far. WHY we introduced ourselves as the Malfoy's makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but at least we seemed to be consistent. "We asked what kind, and you said magic!"

We both tense this time and my jaw tightens. "Oh," we both say, strained.

"Well, we just couldn't let you go after that! So fascinating!

"Magic, you say," I repeat hopelessly.

"And it explained your innnteresting clothes! You know, I always been something of a fashion maven myself! And I just loooove the looks for next season. How brilliant, bringing that Jane Austen look back! I just loved Kira Knightly in that movie."

I have absolutely no clue what she's talking about, but seeing as our identities are somewhat blown as it is I press her to see how. "Did we talk much about work, then?" I ask, contemplating how I will obliviate her without my wand.

"Oh, noooo, no, not at all. In fact, the more I asked, the less interested you looked, so I didn't want to bother you with work when it seemed you wanted to get away from all that for the night."

"And get away you did!" Carl interjects. "I've never seen someone hold their liquor so well while having that much fun."

"He's getting ahead of the story," Deena says, waving her hand and picking up her drink before starting again.

I remember my own and, in an attempt to show some appreciation for their hospitality, I take a sip. Suddenly it's like Ligillimancy all over again. The taste of the tequila hits me behind my nose and I remember more than I care to. Suddenly certain bruises are explained. Bumping into the corners of things as we gamboled around the city. Walking into sliding glass doors that weren't sliding fast enough. The back ends of cars in parking garages. Parking garages? Didn't we use valet? Ugh. Too much. Carl's assessment of holding one's liquor must be a very broad one.

I slide off my seat and smile weakly. "I'm sorry. My stomach must not be up for another drink so soon."

Deena looks sympathetic as she pats my shoulder. "Don't worry, honey. We'll take care of Lou." She leans in to whisper, "The powder room is over there."

I wind my way through the cocktail waitresses and the ambling sight-seers without looking back. Severus- Or Lou, now, will have to hold his own with our gracious hosts. Whatever is still rumbling around in my stomach is anxious to make its presence known. How could we have been so foolish? How could we have let ourselves become so inebriated that we would break the Secrecy Laws? Blown expense accounts... Lost wands... The blatant disregard for the Secrecy Laws... Not to mention being drunk and obviously disorderly while at an INTERNATIONAL potions convention... Forget the tequila; I'm ready to be sick all on my own.

And everything would have been just FINE if I hadn't come around the corner and run my face directly into some woman's fist.


	12. Chapter 12

A/N Super short chapter! Sorry! But I wanted to get this out there so I can hunker down on the next few pieces. Also, the mere IDEA of this happening made me laugh out loud.

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"You bitch! Thanks to you and your husband, Mr. Angel locked himself in his dressing room and won't come out!" She backhands me again and my brain sloshes against the back of my skull. "We have three shows tonight! I'm out a paycheck if he doesn't perform!" And then she lunges at me.

I am thoroughly dumbfounded. "Seriously?" I say to no one in particular. I duck as she swings again.

"You think you're sooo funny, don't you! You and your jerk husband! Heckling Mr. Angel's show, throwing those sodas! They don't even ALLOW food and drink in the theater!"

She moves remarkably fast for a hysterical woman in a mermaid tail sequins gown and heels. Suddenly there is a slots stool aimed directly at my head. Everything that I know and don't know about the last twenty-four hours fades away and all I see is my inconsolable rage for some harpy screaming at me and possibly attempting to murder me.

Her arms are over our heads, stool in hand, so I tackle her around her middle. If I had my wand, I would have just stupefied her. But then again, this huge Muggle crowd, already being in deep with the Ministry, and my seething rage, I'd probably do way more hard than intended. Behind me the stool goes clattering and we roll several feet as we wrestle for the upper hand.

I've been in enough fights in my life to know how to take a punch. Though most of my fighting's been with wand in one hand, more often than not it's been with a fist clenched out of the other. I'm not the best physical fighter, but when some mad bint jumps me outside the ladies', it's no holds barred. "Look, lady! I don't know what the hell you're talking about!"

She flips me over and slams me into the tile. My whole spine reverberates. "LAST NIGHT!" she screams. "Our last show! You and your husband nearly started a riot! Calling Mr. Angel a fraud and a charlatan! What the fuck is a charlatan, anyway?"

"Ohhh, shit..." I hook my leg under hers and flip her off of me and clamor to my feet. I try to back up from her but she's back in my face like a Scottish Quidditch hooligan.

"Mr. Angel is a world famous illusionist! He's been on over fifteen television specials! He's performed for royalty! Who the hell are you two to decide what's magic!"

Merlin's ass, there's blood in my mouth and I think I'm going to black out. Suddenly the feeling of nausea overwhelms me and my tequila-tainted lunch is splattered all over her sequined gown. We both stand, stunned, looking at the mess all over her. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand as she bursts into fresh tears and escapes to the ladies' room behind her.

Severus is next to me with a cocktail napkin, damp with the sweat ring of his drink. "Well done, Miss Granger," he says dryly. "I've just enough ability to keep the authorities at bay a moment more. Perhaps now would be an ideal time to away."

I turn to see dozens and dozens of players and dealers looking stunned but very much alert. The security, though, looks dazed. But for as tired as Severus is, their incapacitation won't last long. "Excellent assessment," I reply. And we disappear out the glass doors faster than apparating.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N - This is not the first time I've written Hermione with a gambling problem. It IS for Snape...

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We wiggle our way through the crowd and away from the disoriented security. I'm impressed with Snape's ability to not only keep his head but also harness any of his magical powers at a time like this, especially without a wand. I'm finally feeling better. I wish I'd thrown up on a disgruntled magician's assistant earlier. Deena and Carl hurry over to meet us as we head for the doors leading to the street. Senor Plinko looks genuinely concerned.

"Sweeeetie," coos Deena. "Are you alright? You took a nasty hit!"

"Yeah, that floozie sucker punched ya!"

"I'm fine," I reassure Carl. "I'd really like to get out of here, please."

Carl opens the door for me and the four of us group together on the street. It's dark now but the heat is still oppressive. It clings to everything like a wool blanket to sweaty legs. If I hadn't thrown up on the woman I would be throwing up now. All my clothes seem to become two sizes too tight and the heat presses down on me from all sides.

"I'm sorry," I smile, "but it seems we might have made some enemies last night. We'd really like to just get a few more clues and get going."

Carl punches me good-naturedly on the shoulder. "Sure, kiddo. Well, just before we heard you and that blondie fighting, we were telling Lou that after we met up at the slots, the cocktail waitress came by to see if we wanted anything. We had some rum and cokes but you two started asking for some things we'd never heard of before."

Deena giggles. "You never DID tell us what was in a Oog's Delight."

The mere mention of one of the most foul drinks in all of Wizardom makes me swoon again and I try to think of the long shower I'll be drowning myself in when we get back to the hotel room. Any hotel room.

"Well, anyway," Carl continues. "We started talking and told you two you oughta sit down with us for a while. Didn't seem like you'd be any trouble, but maybe, well, coulda used a little rest." Carl looks sheepish but I appreciate his candor.

"And you started winning right away!" Deena interjects. "You both did!"

"Oh?" says Severus.

"Yeah! Funny, too, cuz neither me or Deena'd been doin' too great til then. We started winning right then too!"

"Well, we knew, just KNEW you were lucky!" Deena squeals. "And we couldn't let you go. We won over a thousand dollars each! And you two won so much you lost count!"

"Actually," Carl interjects, looking at me, "you won the jackpot! It wasn't more than five thousand, though. Because someone else had already won it that night. Just a few hours before you two got there. That's what some guy told me anyway."

I'm thoroughly amused at Carl's perception of money.

"After that, we went off to the craps tables after talking a bit. We're not much for table games, but Lou was insistent!"

Severus, who has been silent this whole time, looks indignant and then mortified at the idea. "I don't even know what that is," I hear him mutter.

Carl blows on his fist and starts imitating a toss of the dice. "He threw about three hands of garbage at first. Then outta nowhere, he starts throwin' sevens! So the crowd is getting bigger and bigger, and louder! They were cheering you on, that's for sure. You made a lot of people a lot of money last night."

For no good reason Senor Plinko is struggling out of Deena's hold and reaching for me with his bony little chihuahua front legs. She happily hands him to me and I reluctantly take him. He feels like a skin bag full of bones. And why is Senor Plinko bejeweled in all these girly beads anyway?

"At some point, you threw a coupla fours and then it was back to garbage. But by then you two had racked up at least ten thousand bucks more!"

"What?" I blurt out. "Sev- er- Lou won ten THOUSAND dollars throwing DICE?"

Carl assumes incorrectly that my interest is in the money, and not the fact that Severus Snape throwing dice in a Muggle casino while blasted out of his mind is probably the most amazing thing I've ever been a part of. And I'm a witch! I've been on a moving staircase and faced a three-headed dog and all sorts of other nonsense.

"You bet he did!" Carl roars with laughter and punches Severus on his arm, a bit harder than he did me. "We didn't do so bad either, the Missus an' me. We had a tidy four thousand bucks to our name, thank you very much!"

I look up at Severus in a whole new light. His mouth is a thin line as he tries to center himself. "You're very welcome, Carl," he says evenly.

"Oh, it didn't end there!" Deena beams. "When we were done at the craps table, the four of us got invited to the high rollers' poker rooms!" She says "high rollers" as if it is the most prestigious place one could be invited to visit. "You were really amazing at craps, Lou. But Cissy here was somethin' else at the poker table."

"Oh, my," I whisper.

"Oh, do tell," Snape drawls. I want to smack his arm but I'm too busy dreading whatever comes next.

"Honestly, it was fascinating to see! You had such command of that table, such confidence. Like you'd been playing all your life!"

"You made it from ten-thousand bucks to over fifty grand in a coupla minutes," Carl informs. "One guy, he's here on the United Poker Tour, he LEFT the table!"

I look down at Senor Plinko's shining eyes and his tongue lolls out the side of his face. My secret isn't just out, it's probably the talk of the poker tour. "When did we part ways, then?"

"Oh... I'd say about eleven. Pretty early for Vegas, but..."

"We'd lived a whole night in one sitting," Severus sighs.

"Did we say where we were venturing next?"

Deena looks up at Carl. "Eh, nooo... You said you wanted to do EVERYTHING."

"Well. That narrows it down. Everything."

"We accomplished a great deal, to be sure," Snape replies. "Carl. Deena. You've both been astoundingly helpful. We really appreciate it.

"Sure! Hey, we appreciate the four grand!"

Deena reaches out for Senor Plinko and grins toothily. "Good luck, kids. If you need anything, we're here through Wednesday. Room 621."

"Thank you, kindly."

We said out goodbyes and the odd couple disappeared back into the casino mayhem.

Finally alone, Snape looks at me and then down the street one way, then the other.

A huge bus rumbles past us and when it passes I'm looking back across the street and down aways. "Let's go over there to Mandalay Bay. We were there for certain."

"Yes, and as it's certain, I don't see the point." He's still looking right.

"Maybe we said something to someone."

"Yes, like, 'Ta. we're off to do everything!'?"

I sigh and stand, hands on hips, trying to air out my underarms. "If our intentions were random then anyplace we guess will have an equal probability of being some place we went last night."

"Chaos theory," I hear him mutter.

"That's not what chaos theory means."

He's silent until he too is overcome by the heat. "Let's go. We'll avoid the Excalibur. Let's try that green one over there."

"You're biased. But all right." We take the cross walk over the the MGM. Hmm, bright green with golden lions out front. How could this have NOT called to us last night?


	14. Chapter 14

A/N - I've BEEN to this bar.

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We enter through a side door, and it is clear that this is, for lack of a better word, the quiet end of the place. There is a bank of sparsely populated slot machines located near a sleepy looking bar. There is an air conditioning vent directly above an empty seat and I make a bee line for it. Severus sits next to me and unties his ponytail only to retie it again neatly.

"While you were gone, I found out what they meant by magic convention," he says.

"Oh! Excellent, do we have to pull a Lockhart on them, or...?"

"What?"

"Nothing. What did they mean?"

"Apparently there is something called the Men's Apparel Guild in California. And while they are, by definition, located in California, they have their gathering here in Nevada."

"Ohhh... Well. Aren't we lucky? I was imaging the Ministry snapping our wands in half after we finally found them."

He scoffs sarcastically at this. "Really, Miss Granger. We're war heroes."

"I wonder what we were arguing over," I say.

"Us? Pick a topic; I'm sure we've covered it."

"Yes, but we weren't ourselves last night. It could have been anything." I look up, but Snape is staring at a woman who's pumping quarters into a slot machine. "What?"

"Nothing," he says absentmindedly.

"Well, maybe whatever we were arguing about will give us a clue to..." I look up, but again Snape is staring at a young couple who have just won something at a slot machine of their own. "What?"

"Tell me something. How do these things work?" he asks, laying a hand on top of a vacant machine which is entitled "Happy Lucky Hamster Ball!"

"Er... Well... It's got to do with computers. Do you still want to hear about it, then?" I ask, knowing how little patience Severus has for Muggle electronics.

"Yes, the short version, thank you."

"Ah, well, you put in a coin or a bill or a ticket here, see?" I say, pointing to the slot with little green flashing arrows pointing to it. "And the computer counts what you've put in, and then credits you here on the screen. Then you bet with one of these buttons, and then it spins, and then you either win or lose based on what is SUPPOSED to be a random program running inside."

"And these are all, what is is called? Plugged in?"

"Yeesss..." I confirm, trying to follow his train of thought.

He looks back at the young couple who just won a fair amount at their machine. They are overjoyed. Lucky for them they will probably remember this moment tomorrow.

"They were sitting there when we came in. Looked rather frustrated. And now they're winning large sums of money."

"All right," I concur. "But isn't that how gambling works? You can go for ages without winning, especially on these things."

"Magic..." he says softly.

"Sorry?"

"It's how we won all that money."

"I don't understand. How could we have possibly been in the right enough mind to use magic so flawlessly that we would win so very much without the dealers becoming suspicious?"

"We didn't have to do anything," he replies. "What did I tell you about the door locks?"

"That magic would disrupt them and we'd have to use wards if we - "

"Yes, yes," he continues impatiently. "And what did you tell me about these games?"

"Oh... That they're all... Oh! They're all controlled by computers! Not mechanics! But... Then why didn't we just BREAK THEM? How did we get them to work in our favor?"

"I don't think we were trying, honestly." He takes a step back behind my chair and says, "Here." He pulls out a bill from my bag and hands it to me. "Go on."

With a look of interested dread, I feed the fiver into the blinking slot. The machine eats it, then I push the "SPIN!" button. Within five seconds, all three reels spin around and stop on a different colored number 7. Bells and lights go off, and I look up at Severus for an explanation.

"Think about it. These machines are made to LOSE, to NOT win. So when they're working properly, one doesn't win anything."

"But if they're broken..."

"I think we've figured out how we managed enough credit to get ourselves into a roaring craps game... And into the high rollers' rooms."

"Oh, dear..."

"And then it was just a matter of time before your ... inebriated hubris," he says as he clears his throat, "continued the streak at the poker tables and - "

"And the black jack tables," I finish for him.

"Indeed."

I lean back in the chair and press into my eyes with my fingertips. "All right. All right. We've figured out most of the 'wheres' and the 'hows.' But we are still very wandless. Not to mention whatever damage we've done to our reputations. How do we solve that one?" I ask, looking up at him now.

"I'm working on it," he says with the most compassion I've heard in his voice since this mess started. Suddenly his hand is in mine, and this time, I don't jump. "Come. I'm tired of this noise," he says wearily. He leads me back outside into the relative quiet of the parking lot, and back into the oppressive heat. It doesn't occur to me until much, much later that I left that machine sitting there with a three-thousand dollar unclaimed win on it. But I'm sick of seeing money. I hope whoever found it has better luck than we have.


End file.
